General Discussion Thread

[midwestmutt]

Said no kid ever.

[thorny]

I think it's the logic of somebody who can easily afford to buy another bike.

-- if somebody stole from me something I could easily afford to replace, and I had reason to think that the thief did so out of genuine need, I might well react like that.

[Róisín]

Likewise. But I object bitterly to someone who steals because they can, rather than because they must.

[Sc0ut]

It was more a reaction of how can someone believes this? I understand having a peaceful outlook on the world. But good god who in the right mind would believe in 'oh something bad happened to me. Guess that this weird twisted sense of logic when my stuff is taken from me will make everything okay.' like no, when someone steals your stuff go get it back. And if you can't call the police. Don't sit around and not do anything and just let some guy steal your stuff. lol

Sounds like you're motivated only by self-interest and righteousness. That's certainly human and not uncommon and valid up to a point, but it's not the only mindset out there. There are many people who take into account others as well when deciding what to do. How much one chooses to sacrifice for the sake of others varies a lot, but people have given up much more than a bike. I'm sure it sounds stupid to you, and I don't expect to convince you it's not, but maybe more life experience will, one day.

Edited to add: I don't mean one should always let others steal everything from them, or that I'd do the same in comic guy's shoes, or that I even believe that overall happiness increased by his bike getting stolen. I just mean there are many reasons for not always pursuing "justice". And people are not fundamentally logical (even you ) so if you seek logic in every decision you'll be disappointed a lot.

[Hrollo]

who in the right mind would believe

Asking this question is almost always a manifestation of typical mind fallacy, which consists in assuming that your mindset is representative of every people's mindset, and that therefore anyone who expresses significantly different values or preferences from you has to be lying, deluded, manipulated, evil or insane.

[Gwenno]

It was more a reaction of how can someone believes this? I understand having a peaceful outlook on the world. But good god who in the right mind would believe in 'oh something bad happened to me. Guess that this weird twisted sense of logic when my stuff is taken from me will make everything okay.'

Dunno, I think that assuming that the general happiness of the world being more important than your own is pretty decent logic, but well, I guess the world would be a very different place if that were the common viewpoint.  Personally, I find the comic really charming. It shows that you may not have power over the world, but if you're lucky, you can at least have power over yourself and how you react to the world. A similar thing happened to me last year in that I lost my wallet in a nearby city. Of course, I went to the police and filed a report, but when nothing came back I just hoped that if a person had gotten ahold of it, they needed it more than I did, shrugged it off and went home content (either that scenario, or that I had gained the ability to time travel sometime in the future, and future me had gone back in time and taken it, which would have been pretty cool). I guess being affronted and angry seemed like a waste of energy, which I could use a lot better in positive things 

[wavewright62]

What mostly seems to be ignored is that whomever took the bike is not necessarily happier for having acquired it.  They would not have kept it as a nice bike to ride around on lalalaaaa, but onsold it immediately.  More likely they would have gotten a short-term buzz from getting away with the thievery, but that's it.  Most of the money gained from theft also does not go to feed anyone, not *food* anyway.

The discussions I've had since my purse was stolen a few weeks back indicate that nicking stuff from the pools is what they send the young gang recruits to do as an entry-level initiation task.  They note the addresses of the places they have keys for and then systematically go back and rob them. 

Spoiler: tl dr • show

Sure we changed the lock, but we have glass doors, whatever.  We had a drugged guy push in our back door, frame and all, a couple of years ago, never even broke the glass. Ironically the damn thing was actually unlocked at the time.  Our lovely neighbours (his kin, looking after him to get him away from whatever trouble he'd gotten in at home) were winding him up, telling him we'd been laughing at him. They watched him break in our door, laughing and hooting the whole time and telling him how useless he was.  Anyway. He's done a runner, we'll never see the court-ordered restitution.
 Life in Southside, eh.

If we strictly want to quantify how much happiness comes from such acts, it doesn't add up.

[Róisín]

Wavewright, sadly, no, it doesn't. It's always a balance between your own safety and survival and trying to give other people a fair go. A lot of the kids who do stuff like that do it not from need but from a sense of their own entitlement, and the inability to see other people as people, and that annoys me. That said, I'm afraid I broke the arm of the last purse snatcher who tried it on me, both because the action of trying to knock me down and grab my shoulder bag was frightening and disrespectful, and for the sake of all the other genuinely helpless little old ladies whom he might have attacked instead of me. I know people who would have tried to do him worse damage, and a few people who would have given him the bag with their blessing, but I am neither of those.

And I think you are right that thieves are unlikely to be made lastingly happy by their acts. Especially if the acts have consequences other than profit.

[MR_PLINKETT]

Sounds like you're motivated only by self-interest and righteousness. That's certainly human and not uncommon and valid up to a point, but it's not the only mindset out there. There are many people who take into account others as well when deciding what to do. How much one chooses to sacrifice for the sake of others varies a lot, but people have given up much more than a bike. I'm sure it sounds stupid to you, and I don't expect to convince you it's not, but maybe more life experience will, one day.

Edited to add: I don't mean one should always let others steal everything from them, or that I'd do the same in comic guy's shoes, or that I even believe that overall happiness increased by his bike getting stolen. I just mean there are many reasons for not always pursuing "justice". And people are not fundamentally logical (even you ) so if you seek logic in every decision you'll be disappointed a lot.

Oh no no scout! I get how my actions affect others and how it's important to take those into account with a decision. I'm just stating how I can't see the logic in when something has been stolen from you to just assume they needed it. I mean if it makes them feel better that's okay. But that bike is more than likely gonna be used as a means to an end to pursuing other illegal activity. At the very least it should be reported to authorities and some attempt to retrieve it should be made.

Also PLEASE don't assume I don't take others thoughts/feelings into action when I make IRL decisions. I may post shit but I'm not some cold unfeeling monster. That kind of offended me a bit.

[Róisín]

Eh, Plinkett, I'm sure I'm not the only one who can tell from the tone of your posting, and from the things that trouble you, that you are a decent soul. Otherwise the world would not trouble you as it does. *hugs Plinkett*

[MR_PLINKETT]

Eh, Plinkett, I'm sure I'm not the only one who can tell from the tone of your posting, and from the things that trouble you, that you are a decent soul. Otherwise the world would not trouble you as it does. *hugs Plinkett*

Thanks, life has changed for the better lately.

[Róisín]

Plinkett, I hope it continues to change for the better.

[JoB]

I think it's the logic of somebody who can easily afford to buy another bike.

Or, for a somewhat shadier variant, somebody who's convincing himself that it's (now) OK to use the same approach the next time he urgently needs a bike.

What mostly seems to be ignored is that whomever took the bike is not necessarily happier for having acquired it.  They would not have kept it as a nice bike to ride around on lalalaaaa, but onsold it immediately.

Actually bicycles do have a higher rate of "opportunistic" theft (for immediate use by the thief) than most other goods stolen, as evidenced by the fact that many are stolen individually out of busy places (read: in front of the bar / railway station / ... the thief wants to get home from, after failing to plan ahead for that) instead of off quiet nightly streets in residential areas, from the corridor in a tenement house, etc.. Not sure how high the rate is exactly, though.

Also, there's the occasional story of a thief who continued to ride the bike and happened to not live far enough from the person he stole it from ...

[Ragnarok]

Wavewright, sadly, no, it doesn't. It's always a balance between your own safety and survival and trying to give other people a fair go. A lot of the kids who do stuff like that do it not from need but from a sense of their own entitlement, and the inability to see other people as people, and that annoys me. That said, I'm afraid I broke the arm of the last purse snatcher who tried it on me, both because the action of trying to knock me down and grab my shoulder bag was frightening and disrespectful, and for the sake of all the other genuinely helpless little old ladies whom he might have attacked instead of me. I know people who would have tried to do him worse damage, and a few people who would have given him the bag with their blessing, but I am neither of those.

And I think you are right that thieves are unlikely to be made lastingly happy by their acts. Especially if the acts have consequences other than profit.

Interesting story. So the poor fool was Mugging the Monster, to use TropeSpeak...

[Róisín]

Hadn't met that trope before. But yeah, pretty much. I mean, I'm obviously old, and female, and very short, and I limp. But an observant person would notice that I'm also still quite heavyset and muscly, and that my walking stick is a nice solid balanced blackthorn stick. So when the young fool came running up loudly behind me in an Adelaide laneway where there was no reason to run, and grabbed the strap of my shoulder bag, I stopped, braced myself on both feet and my stick, held onto the bag and let gravity take its course. Which it did. Had it been just for myself I might have left him, but I called the police because next time he might have picked on a genuinely fragile and helpless old person. People who prey on the defenceless annoy me.